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| ’TWAS a summery day in the last of May— | |
| Pleasant in sun or shade; | |
| And the hours went by, as the poets say, | |
| Fragrant and fair in their flowery way; | |
| And a hearse crept slowly through Broadway— | 5 |
| And the Fountain gaily play’d. | |
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| The Fountain play’d right merrily, | |
| And the world look’d bright and gay; | |
| And a youth went by, with a restless eye, | |
| Whose heart was sick and whose brain was dry; | 10 |
| And he prayed to God that he might die— | |
| And the Fountain play’d away. | |
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| Uprose the spray like a diamond throne, | |
| And the drops like music rang— | |
| And of those who marvell’d how it shone, | 15 |
| Was a proud man, left, in his shame, alone; | |
| And he shut his teeth with a smother’d groan— | |
| And the Fountain sweetly sang. | |
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| And a rainbow spann’d it changefully, | |
| Like a bright ring broke in twain; | 20 |
| And the pale, fair girl who stopp’d to see, | |
| Was sick with the pangs of poverty— | |
| And from hunger to guilt she chose to flee | |
| As the rainbow smiled again. | |
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| With as fair a ray, on another day, | 25 |
| The morning will have shone; | |
| And as little mark’d, in bright Broadway, | |
| A hearse will glide among busy and gay, | |
| And the bard who sings will have pass’d away— | |
| And the Fountain will play on! | 30 |
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